Military operations, land, sea, or air, are fraught with danger. Even during peacetime, with perfect weather, fully trained teams, executing well rehearsed tasks, people get hurt or die conducting training or operations.
The wonder is how so few get injured,
Over my 32 years of active and guard service, four deployments, can think of three occasions where I could have been injured, wounded or killed. There were probably more where I had no clue I was in danger, but lucked out.
I had a couple of "incidents" as an augmentee during Reforger 77. I set up my Platoon CP a bit too close to a bee hive, and caught one on the temple. My left eye was shut for two days.
The second was a fender bender with an M60 tank. Crunched my jeep's radiator, but the tank was unscathed. My platoon sergeant was driving, he was closest to being injured.
That was about it. I recall one training exercise where my 4 SP Chaparrals weren't maintaining sufficient separation on the road. I think they were just wanting to get back to the motor pool. I was pretty angry about it, then my Platoon Sergeant pulled me aside and said, "LT, think about it. We all came home alive."
Calmed me down immediately, I had too much respect for his service in Vietnam. All 3 of my platoon sergeants (over 18 months) had at least one tour in Vietnam.
I've said this several times, but our platoon leaders need more opportunities for training. Butterbars need to step on their own members, so they can learn their craft. It worked for me. After flunking my first ARTEP, the light came on.